Yesterday, the IOC released recommendations stemming from
that conference.I can’t find a
copy of the recommendations to link to at this time, but Gina
Kolata’s NY Times article reports on some of the content.According to Kolata:

Athletes who identify themselves as female but have medical
disorders that give them masculine characteristics should have their disorders
diagnosed and treated, the group concluded after two days of meetings in Miami
Beach. The experts also said that rules should be put in place for determining
an athlete’s eligibility to compete on a case-by-case basis — but they did not
indicate what those rules should be.

Obviously, one needs more information than this to say much
of anything useful about the specifics of the recommendations.But even given this limited bit of
information I would expect this recommendation to be controversial for at least
two reasons.

If this is the agreed upon approach, then fairness is very
definitely an issue.One cannot be
forced into medical treatment as a condition for participation, surely? . . .

As I see it, the only way this would be feasible is if
athletic competition with such a sex ambiguity poses a risk - then authorities
could say that they do not wish to be party to the increased risk and deny the
athlete the right to participate.The risk of having such a condition alone would not entitle the IOC to
ban an athlete, surely?

Second, many female athletes and others involved in female
athletics have expressed concerns about competitive fairness (see the above-mentioned
NY Times article for quotes from some).Again, the specifics of the recommendation are quite vague
at the moment, but would appear to treat the potential competitive advantage
arising from some intersex conditions as either irrelevant or reversible
through treatment.But this may
not be the case: some intersex conditions can alter skeletomuscular structure
in lasting ways that may impact athletic performance. (See here
for a short article reviewing these issues)

Clearly, sport is not – and never has been -- about creating
a completely level playing field.Yet it does involve drawing a variety of sometimes-arbitrary seeming
lines for the sake of maintaining performance within specified ranges
considered conducive to competition (and, thus, audience appeal).See, for example, the recent debate
between Richard
Posner and Michael
Sandel (which I previously blogged about here)
on sports doping to get a flavor of some of these issues.

The question is, does the right to compete with a possible
advantage as a result of masculinization trump the right to fair competition
for those without it?Whose
rights are more important, because balancing fairness requires that somebody
assign a value to each side's arguments.

The IOC special conference apparently recognized the same
trade-off.According to the New
York Times:

Simpson, of Florida International University, said he
recognized that some female athletes would find the guidelines unfair. But, he
said, “we have to balance fairness to female athletes to fairness to other
competitors.”